Month: September 2004

Life demonstrated perfect harmony on the final evening, with Jackie Chan’s instant classic New Police Story at Kowloon’s Golden Harvest cinema. Obviously, the plot mattered little but the main thing is that it was set in all the tourist sites we had seen over the past few days. The New Police Story web site is here.

And we found Jackie Chan’s hand prints on the walk of the stars too…… so that is almost like touching him, I think. Look at the grin on my face, eh!

JACKIE CHAN!

We made sure that on Monday we experienced downtown mid-week. The travelling sums it up, the world’s longest escalator (800m) takes us up the mountain – totally cool! Then a walk down and we take the trams back and forth since they were so cheap and fun. We also took in EXCELLENT Dim Sum at Maxims in the city hall. Totally Hong Kong. Totally delicious.

True ‘Urban Jungle’ in Hong Kong near the Botanic Gardens

The trams on HK island – Blackpool meets New York!

Ele and I

The best restaurant name in the world (after ‘Abrakebabra’ in Glasgow)

I had saved seeing Hong Kong Island on the first day so I could do it with Ele together. We also met up with Olivier and Jean-Marie – two of Eleanor’s distributors from CSR. Although the three new arrivals were severely jet-lagged (I had no such problems, since Taiwan is in the same time zone as HK) I had some job pushing them into running over to the Peak Tram to take in the views of Hong Kong from above. However, your man succeeded and we took the ridiculously steep service up the side of the hill. I was a bit disappointed that it has turned a bit touristy and Madame Tousaudsy, lacking that creaking “will we hurtle down the hill side when the cable snaps?” excitement, and replaced with air-con. Still, it matters little as the views were incredible.

Views from the top of the Peak Tram

After that (and I am sad to report that the tram’s cable still remained intact on the way down, avoiding the tram smashing through the back end of the station that I so badly craved) we jumped into a taxi (a concession to Jean-Marie’s need to avoid more public transport) and headed for Aberdeen. I have no real idea why they named it after that town, as the views are different to what I think of granite-themed Aberdeen, and it has a rather famous, kitsch, expensive and unfortunately not-really-that-great restaurant called Jumbo, ominously. However, I seem to remember it starring in numerous Kung Fu movies I have seen, so again I don’t care at all.

We decided to take a meandering journey back to Central and took a boat out to Lamma island – a peaceful world away from the main islands. The trip included a rather characterful Chinese man with too many teeth in his mouth guiding us across the choppy waters in his none too stable craft. Still, it was great fun and interesting to see another view. After, we took a speedy ferry back to Central, where Ele and I indulged in some rather fantastic ice cream over views of the city.

Our man Quik Silver.

The views from our… yacht.

Lamma Island

Peacefully awaiting the ferry home

Ele was set to land in the morning of Saturday. However, big delays at Heathrow meant that she had to fly via Bangkok (thus one upping me in the number of Asian countries she has visited!) and instead landed in the evening, about 9 hours late. I took the opportunity to check out Lantau Island – a logical move, since Chep Lap Kok airport is on the same island.

I took the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong Island and immediately leapt onto the first boat for Lantau. The Star Ferry is a wonderful relic of the age of the British Empire, while the ferries for the outlying islands are more Thunderbirds. The quality of public transport in HK is both deeply impressive and characterful, mixing state-of-the-art systems (aiport express, MTR, boats) with older modes (Star Ferry, Trams).

Views from the Star Ferry

The world’s biggest outdoor, seated, bronze Budda is situated on the island (statistically ridiculous, but I didn’t really care – it was still big) and caught some nice views accross the islands. The Cantoese are much more likely to go hiking than the Taiwanese and the mountains really are very beautiful.

Details of the Buddist temple

Incense burning

Statues beneath the Budda

Owing our sanity to international text messages between our mobiles, we finally met up and it was great! Although she was almost tearful from lack of sleep we headed straight out for a drink on the dock side and then sushi. Hello Sister! A sight for sore eyes.

Ele in Hong Kong!

I finally take a holiday! After 4 months of no days off, at the end of a project, and looking forward to meeting my sister, it was ideal timing to take a long weekend in Hong Kong. Only one and a half hours away by plane, it was an incredible feeling leaving for the airport and reliving some memories of my arrival. I planned to arrive the evening before Ele to give me some extra time to look around.

I landed on Friday night and went straight to Chung King Mansions and checked into one of the multitude of guest houses in the crumbling fire risk which makes up the most vibrant, multi-cultural area I have seen in Asia – south Kowloon. Landing late on a Friday felt a mite edgy, with plenty of friendly neighbourhood drugs dealers and hustlers floating around. However, I managed to make it over to the dock side and one of the most impressive urban views I have ever seen – possibly out city-ing Manhattan from the Statten Island ferry.

The delightful Chung King Mansions

The astonishing views of Hong Kong Island from Kowloon

After an hour or two of street drinking (the new urban sport) with the locals I departed back for the hotel. However, I got distracted – as I often am prone to – by the bright lights and sounds of an Irish pub, so I descended the stairs back into something utterly reminscent of Glasgow on a Friday night… and was even more pleasantly surprised to find Greene King IPA beer and Walkers Cheese & Onion crisps – my local poison and fave snack! Waves of satisfaction / alcohol spread through my body and I wandered ( a liitle less steadily) to bed.